How about a curriculum? You'll need that.
Does this "school" intend to grant a degree? If so, you'll have lots
of state requirements to meet, because you'll need to be accredited.
If you plan to offer some sort of standard completion certificate,
you'll need to meet the requirements of the certificating authority.
Beyond that, you'll need to meet any requirements imposed by the city,
county, state, and Federal government for operating ANY business at
that location. For example, you will need a business license, you'll
need employer identifications, you'll need to withhhold taxes from
payrolls and remit them to the governments, to meet safety
requirements, and to file annual financial reports and tax returns. If
you're teaching minors, you may need to have your faculty undergo
criminal background checks to weed out any with histories of molesting
people or other similar crimes. You will need insurance, and in the
current environment insurance is expensive. There are some good books
and other sources for people running small businesses, and all that
stuff applies.
If you've really got a school, and you don't practice discrimination
(you'd better not anyway!), I think you would have a good chance at
qualifying as an automatic charity with the IRS. But do you WANT this
enterprise to be not-for-profit? Do you intend to solicit or accept
contributions, aside from fees for instruction? Beyond being paid what
your labor is worth, you would not be allowed to extract from the
business any of its profits; all profits would have to remain in the
business or be given to similar charitable organizations. Further, the
organization would need to be incorporated. Granted, you would likely
want to do that anyway, for personal liability reasons. And any time
you have a corporation you've got a lot of organizational stuff to do,
and it must be well-documented. There are some good books out there
that will guide you through the formation of a corporation, and in the
case of a nonprofit, the filings and application fees that are
necessary to apply for tax exemptions. |
